Pruning The Dark Side

I’m really, really good at growing weeds. Like, maybe pro level. I give them everything they need. Free reign to take over the choicest areas of our property, unfettered access to the best sunlight and copious amounts of rainfall here in the middle of the country, where we receive rain by the week. I never bother their growth patterns and I rarely try to kill them or do ANYTHING except leave them to terrorize the place. I could have a show on HGTV, wherein they showcase me drinking beer around several locations on the compound, watching my weeds grow and marveling at their progress. I think many people could relate to this show and it would become a hit with every other lazy homeowner in rural America.

I decided recently that we’d tackle this situation with a raised bed garden. We’ve had gardens in the past, simple affairs that yielded us a nice little bounty of fruits and vegetables. But that wasn’t enough, you see. I am a man with tools. A man with the desire to over-engineer the construction of a sawhorse. A man with a desire to justify the purchase more tools by taking on projects that require more tools. A man with a hankering for bankruptcy at the hands of tool vendors, apparently. And thus it was determined that we would have a garden of Leviathan proportions, fenced in, trimmed out and enough to slap Martha Stewart in her proverbial face.

As an aside, I feel the need to slap Martha Stewart on a regular basis. She’s just so damn smug and condescending and comes across like a royal bitch. My mother and I got into it when I insisted that she should have gotten The Chair a few years ago for her financial transgressions. Mom sorta worships at the altar of Martha, so naturally, I want to chainsaw said altar into many pieces. Hello, therapeutic breakthrough, you just came outta nowhere.

Where were we? Oh yeah, the garden project. This project has been about two years in the making, since my lazy gene is highly dominant, especially over the productivity gene. I set the fence posts a while back and then went on to insist to The Wife that I could do no further since “they had to settle properly” (yes, I realize the utter bullshittiness of this statement). So the NEXT YEAR, I began to string the fence wire up, and I’m pretty good with the ten feet of progress I’ve made. We’ve secured some cinder block, which I hope to get set before the boys leave for college. I’ve got to carefully weigh my procrastination with the level of resentment She feels towards me….it’s a delicate, tightrope-walking line I tread, and is best left to a pro.

All that’s left is…..well….most of it. You see, I can appreciate weeds, since they’re willing to do all the work and I can claim credit for their aggressive behavior. This whole business of constructing Fort Knox for bell peppers is beginning to lose it’s appeal. I can justify no tool purchases in the foreseeable future (thank you, motorcycle. I love you. Endlessly) and growing season is here. The Wife is beginning to demand results. Pressure is on for health conscious organic foods for my family, dammit.

And all I really want to do is drink beer out in my field and watch the weeds bloom.